Speaker Series

PCIM regularly brings the leading lights in independent media to Ithaca for public presentations and small group meetings with students and faculty.

In fall 2014 Betty Medsger, journalist and author of the fascinating new book The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI, spoke about the "ordinary" citizens who broke into an FBI office in 1971, revealing the bureau's surveillance, harassment, and intimidation of peaceful civil rights, women's rights, and antiwar activists and political dissidents.

author, journalist, and Democracy Now! cohost Juan Gonzalez, who spoke on "The Epic Story of Race & U.S. Media";

feminist author Susan Faludi, who spoke on "9/11: Myth, Media and Gender" on the 10th anniversary of 9/11/01;

Stephen Zunes, independent journalist, author, educator, and scholar of U.S. policy in the Middle East and of strategic nonviolent action, who shared insights on "Democracy Uprisings in the Middle East: Victories and Setbacks;

Brave New Films executive director Jim Miller '85, who screened both War on Whistleblowers: Free Press and the National Security State and Unmanned: America's Drone Wars;

and other important independent voices. See "past speakers" for a more complete listing.

As a cosponsor, PCIM has helped present many other speakers to the Ithaca community, including legal scholar Jens David Ohlin on "Drones, U.S. Policy, and Constitutional Rights"; Manari Kaji Ushigua of the Sápara people of the Ecuadorian Amazon on his people's struggle to document their history before they go extinct (thanks to corporate intrusions on their ancestral home); Zillah Eisenstein and Sarah Eisentein Stumbar on reproductive rights; documentary filmmakers River Branch (The Voice That Broke the Silence); investigative journalist and author David Cay Johnston on how tax and government policies favor the 1 percent; political writer John Nichols on “First Amendment Remedies: The Constitution as a Call to Action”; Vietnam and Agent Orange scholar and author Fred A. Wilcox; Iraqi blogger Raed Jarrar; independent filmmaker Fred Marx (Hoop Dreams, Boys to Men?); Israeli blogger Gershom Gorenberg; journalist/nuclear weapons expert Frida Berrigan; Colombian journalist Claudia Lopez; documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles (Gimme Shelter, Grey Gardens, Salesman); journalist Helen Zia; homeless advocate/videographer Mark Horvath; and Seth Reiss of The Onion's creative team.